"Mugby Junction!" said the traveller, pulling up the woollen mufflerround his throat with both hands. "At past three o'clock of atempestuous morning! So!"

He spoke to himself. There was no one else to speak to. Perhaps,though there had been any one else to speak to, he would havepreferred to speak to himself. Speaking to himself he spoke to aman within five years of fifty either way, who had turned grey toosoon, like a neglected fire; a man of pondering habit, broodingcarriage of the head, and suppressed internal voice; a man with manyindications on him of having been much alone.

He stood unnoticed on the dreary platform, except by the rain and bythe wind. Those two vigilant assailants made a rush at him. "Verywell," said he, yielding. "It signifies nothing to me to whatquarter I turn my face."

Thus, at Mugby Junction, at past three o'clock of a tempestuousmorning, the traveller went where the weather drove him.

Not but what he could make a stand when he was so minded, for,coming to the end of the roofed shelter (it is of considerableextent at Mugby Junction), and looking out upon the dark night, witha yet darker spirit-wing of storm beating its wild way through it,he faced about, and held his own as ruggedly in the difficultdirection as he had held it in the easier one. Thus, with a steadystep, the traveller went up and down, up and down, up and down,seeking nothing and finding it.

A place replete with shadowy shapes, this Mugby Junction in theblack hours of the four-and-twenty. Mysterious goods trains,covered with palls and gliding on like vast weird funerals,conveying themselves guiltily away from the presence of the fewlighted lamps, as if their freight had come to a secret and unlawfulend. Half-miles of coal pursuing in a Detective manner, followingwhen they lead, stopping when they stop, backing when they back.Red-hot embers showering out upon the ground, down this dark avenue,and down the other, as if torturing fires were being raked clear;concurrently, shrieks and groans and grinds invading the ear, as ifthe tortured were at the height of their suffering. Iron-barredcages full of cattle jangling by midway, the drooping beasts withhorns entangled, eyes frozen with terror, and mouths too: at leastthey have long icicles (or what seem so) hanging from their lips.Unknown languages in the air, conspiring in red, green, and whitecharacters. An earthquake, accompanied with thunder and lightning,going up express to London. Now, all quiet, all rusty, wind andrain in possession, lamps extinguished, Mugby Junction dead andindistinct, with its robe drawn over its head, like Caesar.

Now, too, as the belated traveller plodded up and down, a shadowytrain went by him in the gloom which was no other than the train ofa life. From whatsoever intangible deep cutting or dark tunnel itemerged, here it came, unsummoned and unannounced, stealing uponhim, and passing away into obscurity. Here mournfully went by achild who had never had a childhood or known a parent, inseparablefrom a youth with a bitter sense of his namelessness, coupled to aman the enforced business of whose best years had been distastefuland oppressive, linked to an ungrateful friend, dragging after him awoman once beloved. Attendant, with many a clank and wrench, werelumbering cares, dark meditations, huge dim disappointments,monotonous years, a long jarring line of the discords of a solitaryand unhappy existence.

"--Yours, sir?"

The traveller recalled his eyes from the waste into which they hadbeen staring, and fell back a step or so under the abruptness, andperhaps the chance appropriateness, of the question.

"Oh! My thoughts were not here for the moment. Yes. Yes. Thosetwo portmanteaus are mine. Are you a Porter?"

"On Porter's wages, sir. But I am Lamps."

The traveller looked a little confused.

"Who did you say you are?"

"Lamps, sir," showing an oily cloth in his hand, as fartherexplanation.

"Surely, surely. Is there any hotel or tavern here?"

"Not exactly here, sir. There is a Refreshment Room here, but--"Lamps, with a mighty serious look, gave his head a warning roll thatplainly added--"but it's a blessed circumstance for you that it'snot open."

"You couldn't recommend it, I see, if it was available?"

"Ask your pardon, sir. If it was -?"

"Open?"

"It ain't my place, as a paid servant of the company, to give myopinion on any of the company's toepics,"--he pronounced it morelike toothpicks,--"beyond lamp-ile and cottons," returned Lamps in aconfidential tone; "but, speaking as a man, I wouldn't recommend myfather (if he was to come to life again) to go and try how he'd betreated at the Refreshment Room. Not speaking as a man, no, I wouldNOT."

The traveller nodded conviction. "I suppose I can put up in thetown? There is a town here?" For the traveller (though a stay-at-home compared with most travellers) had been, like many others,carried on the steam winds and the iron tides through that Junctionbefore, without having ever, as one might say, gone ashore there.

"Oh yes, there's a town, sir! Anyways, there's town enough to putup in. But," following the glance of the other at his luggage,"this is a very dead time of the night with us, sir. The deadesttime. I might a'most call it our deadest and buriedest time."

"No porters about?"

"Well, sir, you see," returned Lamps, confidential again, "they ingeneral goes off with the gas. That's how it is. And they seem tohave overlooked you, through your walking to the furder end of theplatform. But, in about twelve minutes or so, she may be up."

"Who may be up?"

"The three forty-two, sir. She goes off in a sidin' till the Up Xpasses, and then she"--here an air of hopeful vagueness pervadedLamps--"does all as lays in her power."

"That's it, sir.--A Parliamentary or a Skirmishun, she mostly DOESgo off into a sidin'. But, when she CAN get a chance, she'swhistled out of it, and she's whistled up into doin' all as,"--Lampsagain wore the air of a highly sanguine man who hoped for the best,--"all as lays in her power."

He then explained that the porters on duty, being required to be inattendance on the Parliamentary matron in question, would doubtlessturn up with the gas. In the meantime, if the gentleman would notvery much object to the smell of lamp-oil, and would accept thewarmth of his little room - The gentleman, being by this time verycold, instantly closed with the proposal.

A greasy little cabin it was, suggestive, to the sense of smell, ofa cabin in a Whaler. But there was a bright fire burning in itsrusty grate, and on the floor there stood a wooden stand of newlytrimmed and lighted lamps, ready for carriage service. They made abright show, and their light, and the warmth, accounted for thepopularity of the room, as borne witness to by many impressions ofvelveteen trousers on a form by the fire, and many rounded smearsand smudges of stooping velveteen shoulders on the adjacent wall.Various untidy shelves accommodated a quantity of lamps and oil-cans, and also a fragrant collection of what looked like the pocket-handkerchiefs of the whole lamp family.

As Barbox Brothers (so to call the traveller on the warranty of hisluggage) took his seat upon the form, and warmed his now unglovedhands at the fire, he glanced aside at a little deal desk, muchblotched with ink, which his elbow touched. Upon it were somescraps of coarse paper, and a superannuated steel pen in veryreduced and gritty circumstances.

From glancing at the scraps of paper, he turned involuntarily to hishost, and said, with some roughness:

"Why, you are never a poet, man?"

Lamps had certainly not the conventional appearance of one, as hestood modestly rubbing his squab nose with a handkerchief soexceedingly oily, that he might have been in the act of mistakinghimself for one of his charges. He was a spare man of about theBarbox Brothers time of life, with his features whimsically drawnupward as if they were attracted by the roots of his hair. He had apeculiarly shining transparent complexion, probably occasioned byconstant oleaginous application; and his attractive hair, being cutshort, and being grizzled, and standing straight up on end as if itin its turn were attracted by some invisible magnet above it, thetop of his head was not very unlike a lamp-wick.

"But, to be sure, it's no business of mine," said Barbox Brothers."That was an impertinent observation on my part. Be what you like."

"Some people, sir," remarked Lamps in a tone of apology, "aresometimes what they don't like."

"Nobody knows that better than I do," sighed the other. "I havebeen what I don't like, all my life."

"--To composing little Comic-Songs-like--and what was more hard--tosinging 'em afterwards," said Lamps, "it went against the grain atthat time, it did indeed."

Something that was not all oil here shining in Lamps's eye, BarboxBrothers withdrew his own a little disconcerted, looked at the fire,and put a foot on the top bar. "Why did you do it, then?" he askedafter a short pause; abruptly enough, but in a softer tone. "If youdidn't want to do it, why did you do it? Where did you sing them?Public-house?"

To which Mr. Lamps returned the curious reply: "Bedside."

At this moment, while the traveller looked at him for elucidation,Mugby Junction started suddenly, trembled violently, and opened itsgas eyes. "She's got up!" Lamps announced, excited. "What lays inher power is sometimes more, and sometimes less; but it's laid inher power to get up to-night, by George!"

The legend "Barbox Brothers," in large white letters on two blacksurfaces, was very soon afterwards trundling on a truck through asilent street, and, when the owner of the legend had shivered on thepavement half an hour, what time the porter's knocks at the Inn Doorknocked up the whole town first, and the Inn last, he groped his wayinto the close air of a shut-up house, and so groped between thesheets of a shut-up bed that seemed to have been expresslyrefrigerated for him when last made.

II

"You remember me, Young Jackson?"

"What do I remember if not you? You are my first remembrance. Itwas you who told me that was my name. It was you who told me thaton every twentieth of December my life had a penitential anniversaryin it called a birthday. I suppose the last communication was truerthan the first!"

"What am I like, Young Jackson?"

"You are like a blight all through the year to me. You hard-lined,thin-lipped, repressive, changeless woman with a wax mask on. Youare like the Devil to me; most of all when you teach me religiousthings, for you make me abhor them."

"You remember me, Mr. Young Jackson?" In another voice from anotherquarter.

"Most gratefully, sir. You were the ray of hope and prosperingambition in my life. When I attended your course, I believed that Ishould come to be a great healer, and I felt almost happy--eventhough I was still the one boarder in the house with that horriblemask, and ate and drank in silence and constraint with the maskbefore me, every day. As I had done every, every, every day,through my school-time and from my earliest recollection."

"What am I like, Mr. Young Jackson?"

"You are like a Superior Being to me. You are like Nature beginningto reveal herself to me. I hear you again, as one of the hushedcrowd of young men kindling under the power of your presence andknowledge, and you bring into my eyes the only exultant tears thatever stood in them."

"You remember Me, Mr. Young Jackson?" In a grating voice from quiteanother quarter.

"Too well. You made your ghostly appearance in my life one day, andannounced that its course was to be suddenly and wholly changed.You showed me which was my wearisome seat in the Galley of BarboxBrothers. (When THEY were, if they ever were, is unknown to me;there was nothing of them but the name when I bent to the oar.) Youtold me what I was to do, and what to be paid; you told meafterwards, at intervals of years, when I was to sign for the Firm,when I became a partner, when I became the Firm. I know no more ofit, or of myself."

"What am I like, Mr. Young Jackson?"

"You are like my father, I sometimes think. You are hard enough andcold enough so to have brought up an acknowledged son. I see yourscanty figure, your close brown suit, and your tight brown wig; butyou, too, wear a wax mask to your death. You never by a chanceremove it--it never by a chance falls off--and I know no more ofyou."

Throughout this dialogue, the traveller spoke to himself at hiswindow in the morning, as he had spoken to himself at the Junctionovernight. And as he had then looked in the darkness, a man who hadturned grey too soon, like a neglected fire: so he now looked inthe sun-light, an ashier grey, like a fire which the brightness ofthe sun put out.

The firm of Barbox Brothers had been some offshoot or irregularbranch of the Public Notary and bill-broking tree. It had gainedfor itself a griping reputation before the days of Young Jackson,and the reputation had stuck to it and to him. As he hadimperceptibly come into possession of the dim den up in the cornerof a court off Lombard Street, on whose grimy windows theinscription Barbox Brothers had for many long years daily interposeditself between him and the sky, so he had insensibly found himself apersonage held in chronic distrust, whom it was essential to screwtight to every transaction in which he engaged, whose word was neverto be taken without his attested bond, whom all dealers with openlyset up guards and wards against. This character had come upon himthrough no act of his own. It was as if the original Barbox hadstretched himself down upon the office floor, and had thither causedto be conveyed Young Jackson in his sleep, and had there effected ametempsychosis and exchange of persons with him. The discovery--aided in its turn by the deceit of the only woman he had ever loved,and the deceit of the only friend he had ever made: who eloped fromhim to be married together--the discovery, so followed up, completedwhat his earliest rearing had begun. He shrank, abashed, within theform of Barbox, and lifted up his head and heart no more.

But he did at last effect one great release in his condition. Hebroke the oar he had plied so long, and he scuttled and sank thegalley. He prevented the gradual retirement of an old conventionalbusiness from him, by taking the initiative and retiring from it.With enough to live on (though, after all, with not too much), heobliterated the firm of Barbox Brothers from the pages of the Post-Office Directory and the face of the earth, leaving nothing of itbut its name on two portmanteaus.

"For one must have some name in going about, for people to pick up,"he explained to Mugby High Street, through the Inn window, "and thatname at least was real once. Whereas, Young Jackson!--Not tomention its being a sadly satirical misnomer for Old Jackson."

He took up his hat and walked out, just in time to see, passingalong on the opposite side of the way, a velveteen man, carrying hisday's dinner in a small bundle that might have been larger withoutsuspicion of gluttony, and pelting away towards the Junction at agreat pace.

"There's Lamps!" said Barbox Brothers. "And by the bye--"

Ridiculous, surely, that a man so serious, so self-contained, andnot yet three days emancipated from a routine of drudgery, shouldstand rubbing his chin in the street, in a brown study about ComicSongs.

"Bedside?" said Barbox Brothers testily. "Sings them at thebedside? Why at the bedside, unless he goes to bed drunk? Does, Ishouldn't wonder. But it's no business of mine. Let me see. MugbyJunction, Mugby Junction. Where shall I go next? As it came intomy head last night when I woke from an uneasy sleep in the carriageand found myself here, I can go anywhere from here. Where shall Igo? I'll go and look at the Junction by daylight. There's nohurry, and I may like the look of one Line better than another."

But there were so many Lines. Gazing down upon them from a bridgeat the Junction, it was as if the concentrating Companies formed agreat Industrial Exhibition of the works of extraordinary groundspiders that spun iron. And then so many of the Lines went suchwonderful ways, so crossing and curving among one another, that theeye lost them. And then some of them appeared to start with thefixed intention of going five hundred miles, and all of a suddengave it up at an insignificant barrier, or turned off into aworkshop. And then others, like intoxicated men, went a little wayvery straight, and surprisingly slued round and came back again.And then others were so chock-full of trucks of coal, others were soblocked with trucks of casks, others were so gorged with trucks ofballast, others were so set apart for wheeled objects like immenseiron cotton-reels: while others were so bright and clear, andothers were so delivered over to rust and ashes and idlewheelbarrows out of work, with their legs in the air (looking muchlike their masters on strike), that there was no beginning, middle,or end to the bewilderment.

Barbox Brothers stood puzzled on the bridge, passing his right handacross the lines on his forehead, which multiplied while he lookeddown, as if the railway Lines were getting themselves photographedon that sensitive plate. Then was heard a distant ringing of bellsand blowing of whistles. Then, puppet-looking heads of men poppedout of boxes in perspective, and popped in again. Then, prodigiouswooden razors, set up on end, began shaving the atmosphere. Then,several locomotive engines in several directions began to scream andbe agitated. Then, along one avenue a train came in. Then, alonganother two trains appeared that didn't come in, but stoppedwithout. Then, bits of trains broke off. Then, a struggling horsebecame involved with them. Then, the locomotives shared the bits oftrains, and ran away with the whole.

"I have not made my next move much clearer by this. No hurry. Noneed to make up my mind to-day, or to-morrow, nor yet the day after.I'll take a walk."

It fell out somehow (perhaps he meant it should) that the walktended to the platform at which he had alighted, and to Lamps'sroom. But Lamps was not in his room. A pair of velveteen shoulderswere adapting themselves to one of the impressions on the wall byLamps's fireplace, but otherwise the room was void. In passing backto get out of the station again, he learnt the cause of thisvacancy, by catching sight of Lamps on the opposite line of railway,skipping along the top of a train, from carriage to carriage, andcatching lighted namesakes thrown up to him by a coadjutor.

"He is busy. He has not much time for composing or singing ComicSongs this morning, I take it."

The direction he pursued now was into the country, keeping very nearto the side of one great Line of railway, and within easy view ofothers. "I have half a mind,"' he said, glancing around, "to settlethe question from this point, by saying, 'I'll take this set ofrails, or that, or t'other, and stick to it.' They separatethemselves from the confusion, out here, and go their ways."

Ascending a gentle hill of some extent, he came to a few cottages.There, looking about him as a very reserved man might who had neverlooked about him in his life before, he saw some six or eight youngchildren come merrily trooping and whooping from one of thecottages, and disperse. But not until they had all turned at thelittle garden-gate, and kissed their hands to a face at the upperwindow: a low window enough, although the upper, for the cottagehad but a story of one room above the ground.

Now, that the children should do this was nothing; but that theyshould do this to a face lying on the sill of the open window,turned towards them in a horizontal position, and apparently only aface, was something noticeable. He looked up at the window again.Could only see a very fragile, though a very bright face, lying onone cheek on the window-sill. The delicate smiling face of a girlor woman. Framed in long bright brown hair, round which was tied alight blue band or fillet, passing under the chin.

He walked on, turned back, passed the window again, shyly glanced upagain. No change. He struck off by a winding branch-road at thetop of the hill--which he must otherwise have descended--kept thecottages in view, worked his way round at a distance so as to comeout once more into the main road, and be obliged to pass thecottages again. The face still lay on the window-sill, but not somuch inclined towards him. And now there were a pair of delicatehands too. They had the action of performing on some musicalinstrument, and yet it produced no sound that reached his ears.

"Mugby Junction must be the maddest place in England," said BarboxBrothers, pursuing his way down the hill. "The first thing I findhere is a Railway Porter who composes comic songs to sing at hisbedside. The second thing I find here is a face, and a pair ofhands playing a musical instrument that DON'T play!"

The day was a fine bright day in the early beginning of November,the air was clear and inspiriting, and the landscape was rich inbeautiful colours. The prevailing colours in the court off LombardStreet, London city, had been few and sombre. Sometimes, when theweather elsewhere was very bright indeed, the dwellers in thosetents enjoyed a pepper-and-salt-coloured day or two, but theiratmosphere's usual wear was slate or snuff coloured.

He relished his walk so well that he repeated it next day. He was alittle earlier at the cottage than on the day before, and he couldhear the children upstairs singing to a regular measure, andclapping out the time with their hands.

"Still, there is no sound of any musical instrument," he said,listening at the corner, "and yet I saw the performing hands againas I came by. What are the children singing? Why, good Lord, theycan never be singing the multiplication table?"

They were, though, and with infinite enjoyment. The mysterious facehad a voice attached to it, which occasionally led or set thechildren right. Its musical cheerfulness was delightful. Themeasure at length stopped, and was succeeded by a murmuring of youngvoices, and then by a short song which he made out to be about thecurrent month of the year, and about what work it yielded to thelabourers in the fields and farmyards. Then there was a stir oflittle feet, and the children came trooping and whooping out, as onthe previous day. And again, as on the previous day, they allturned at the garden-gate, and kissed their hands--evidently to theface on the window-sill, though Barbox Brothers from his retiredpost of disadvantage at the corner could not see it.

But, as the children dispersed, he cut off one small straggler--abrown-faced boy with flaxen hair--and said to him:

"Come here, little one. Tell me, whose house is that?"

The child, with one swarthy arm held up across his eyes, half inshyness, and half ready for defence, said from behind the inside ofhis elbow:

"Phoebe's."

"And who," said Barbox Brothers, quite as much embarrassed by hispart in the dialogue as the child could possibly be by his, "isPhoebe?"

To which the child made answer: "Why, Phoebe, of course."

The small but sharp observer had eyed his questioner closely, andhad taken his moral measure. He lowered his guard, and ratherassumed a tone with him: as having discovered him to be anunaccustomed person in the art of polite conversation.

"Phoebe," said the child, "can't be anybobby else but Phoebe. Canshe?"

"No, I suppose not."

"Well," returned the child, "then why did you ask me?"

Deeming it prudent to shift his ground, Barbox Brothers took up anew position.

"What do you do there? Up there in that room where the open windowis. What do you do there?"

"Cool," said the child.

"Eh?"

"Co-o-ol," the child repeated in a louder voice, lengthening out theword with a fixed look and great emphasis, as much as to say:"What's the use of your having grown up, if you're such a donkey asnot to understand me?"

"Yes, I have found it out. What would you do with twopence, if Igave it you?"

"Pend it."

The knock-down promptitude of this reply leaving him not a leg tostand upon, Barbox Brothers produced the twopence with greatlameness, and withdrew in a state of humiliation.

But, seeing the face on the window-sill as he passed the cottage, heacknowledged its presence there with a gesture, which was not a nod,not a bow, not a removal of his hat from his head, but was adiffident compromise between or struggle with all three. The eyesin the face seemed amused, or cheered, or both, and the lipsmodestly said: "Good-day to you, sir."

"I find I must stick for a time to Mugby Junction," said BarboxBrothers with much gravity, after once more stopping on his returnroad to look at the Lines where they went their several ways soquietly. "I can't make up my mind yet which iron road to take. Infact, I must get a little accustomed to the Junction before I candecide."

So, he announced at the Inn that he was "going to stay on for thepresent," and improved his acquaintance with the Junction thatnight, and again next morning, and again next night and morning:going down to the station, mingling with the people there, lookingabout him down all the avenues of railway, and beginning to take aninterest in the incomings and outgoings of the trains. At first, heoften put his head into Lamps's little room, but he never foundLamps there. A pair or two of velveteen shoulders he usually foundthere, stooping over the fire, sometimes in connection with aclasped knife and a piece of bread and meat; but the answer to hisinquiry, "Where's Lamps?" was, either that he was "t'other side theline," or, that it was his off-time, or (in the latter case) his ownpersonal introduction to another Lamps who was not his Lamps.However, he was not so desperately set upon seeing Lamps now, but hebore the disappointment. Nor did he so wholly devote himself to hissevere application to the study of Mugby Junction as to neglectexercise. On the contrary, he took a walk every day, and always thesame walk. But the weather turned cold and wet again, and thewindow was never open.

III

At length, after a lapse of some days, there came another streak offine bright hardy autumn weather. It was a Saturday. The windowwas open, and the children were gone. Not surprising, this, for hehad patiently watched and waited at the corner until they WERE gone.

"Good-day," he said to the face; absolutely getting his hat clearoff his head this time.

"Good-day to you, sir."

"I am glad you have a fine sky again to look at."

"Thank you, sir. It is kind if you."

"You are an invalid, I fear?"

"No, sir. I have very good health."

"But are you not always lying down?"

"Oh yes, I am always lying down, because I cannot sit up! But I amnot an invalid."

The laughing eyes seemed highly to enjoy his great mistake.

"Would you mind taking the trouble to come in, sir? There is abeautiful view from this window. And you would see that I am not atall ill--being so good as to care."

It was said to help him, as he stood irresolute, but evidentlydesiring to enter, with his diffident hand on the latch of thegarden-gate. It did help him, and he went in.

The room up-stairs was a very clean white room with a low roof. Itsonly inmate lay on a couch that brought her face to a level with thewindow. The couch was white too; and her simple dress or wrapperbeing light blue, like the band around her hair, she had an ethereallook, and a fanciful appearance of lying among clouds. He felt thatshe instinctively perceived him to be by habit a downcast taciturnman; it was another help to him to have established thatunderstanding so easily, and got it over.

There was an awkward constraint upon him, nevertheless, as hetouched her hand, and took a chair at the side of her couch.

"I see now," he began, not at all fluently, "how you occupy yourhand. Only seeing you from the path outside, I thought you wereplaying upon something."

She was engaged in very nimbly and dexterously making lace. A lace-pillow lay upon her breast; and the quick movements and changes ofher hands upon it, as she worked, had given them the action he hadmisinterpreted.

"That is curious," she answered with a bright smile. "For I oftenfancy, myself, that I play tunes while I am at work."

"Have you any musical knowledge?"

She shook her head.

"I think I could pick out tunes, if I had any instrument, whichcould be made as handy to me as my lace-pillow. But I dare say Ideceive myself. At all events, I shall never know."

"You have a musical voice. Excuse me; I have heard you sing."

"With the children?" she answered, slightly colouring. "Oh yes. Ising with the dear children, if it can be called singing."

Barbox Brothers glanced at the two small forms in the room, andhazarded the speculation that she was fond of children, and that shewas learned in new systems of teaching them?

"Very fond of them," she said, shaking her head again; "but I knownothing of teaching, beyond the interest I have in it, and thepleasure it gives me when they learn. Perhaps your overhearing mylittle scholars sing some of their lessons has led you so far astrayas to think me a grand teacher? Ah! I thought so! No, I have onlyread and been told about that system. It seemed so pretty andpleasant, and to treat them so like the merry Robins they are, thatI took up with it in my little way. You don't need to be told whata very little way mine is, sir," she added with a glance at thesmall forms and round the room.

All this time her hands were busy at her lace-pillow. As they stillcontinued so, and as there was a kind of substitute for conversationin the click and play of its pegs, Barbox Brothers took theopportunity of observing her. He guessed her to be thirty. Thecharm of her transparent face and large bright brown eyes was, notthat they were passively resigned, but that they were actively andthoroughly cheerful. Even her busy hands, which of their ownthinness alone might have besought compassion, plied their task witha gay courage that made mere compassion an unjustifiable assumptionof superiority, and an impertinence.

He saw her eyes in the act of rising towards his, and he directedhis towards the prospect, saying: "Beautiful, indeed!"

"Most beautiful, sir. I have sometimes had a fancy that I wouldlike to sit up, for once, only to try how it looks to an erect head.But what a foolish fancy that would be to encourage! It cannot lookmore lovely to any one than it does to me."

Her eyes were turned to it, as she spoke, with most delightedadmiration and enjoyment. There was not a trace in it of any senseof deprivation.

"And those threads of railway, with their puffs of smoke and steamchanging places so fast, make it so lively for me," she went on. "Ithink of the number of people who can go where they wish, on theirbusiness, or their pleasure; I remember that the puffs make signs tome that they are actually going while I look; and that enlivens theprospect with abundance of company, if I want company. There is thegreat Junction, too. I don't see it under the foot of the hill, butI can very often hear it, and I always know it is there. It seemsto join me, in a way, to I don't know how many places and thingsthat I shall never see."

With an abashed kind of idea that it might have already joinedhimself to something he had never seen, he said constrainedly:"Just so."

"And so you see, sir," pursued Phoebe, "I am not the invalid youthought me, and I am very well off indeed."

"You have a happy disposition," said Barbox Brothers: perhaps witha slight excusatory touch for his own disposition.

"Ah! But you should know my father," she replied. "His is thehappy disposition!--Don't mind, sir!" For his reserve took thealarm at a step upon the stairs, and he distrusted that he would beset down for a troublesome intruder. "This is my father coming."

The door opened, and the father paused there.

"Why, Lamps!" exclaimed Barbox Brothers, starting from his chair."How do you do, Lamps?"

To which Lamps responded: "The gentleman for Nowhere! How do youDO, sir?"

And they shook hands, to the greatest admiration and surprise ofLamp's daughter.

"I have looked you up half-a-dozen times since that night," saidBarbox Brothers, "but have never found you."

"So I've heerd on, sir, so I've heerd on," returned Lamps. "It'syour being noticed so often down at the Junction, without taking anytrain, that has begun to get you the name among us of the gentlemanfor Nowhere. No offence in my having called you by it when took bysurprise, I hope, sir?"

"None at all. It's as good a name for me as any other you couldcall me by. But may I ask you a question in the corner here?"

Lamps suffered himself to be led aside from his daughter's couch byone of the buttons of his velveteen jacket.

"Is this the bedside where you sing your songs?"

Lamps nodded.

The gentleman for Nowhere clapped him on the shoulder, and theyfaced about again.

"Upon my word, my dear," said Lamps then to his daughter, lookingfrom her to her visitor, "it is such an amaze to me, to find youbrought acquainted with this gentleman, that I must (if thisgentleman will excuse me) take a rounder."

Mr. Lamps demonstrated in action what this meant, by pulling out hisoily handkerchief rolled up in the form of a ball, and givinghimself an elaborate smear, from behind the right ear, up the cheek,across the forehead, and down the other cheek to behind his leftear. After this operation he shone exceedingly.

"It's according to my custom when particular warmed up by anyagitation, sir," he offered by way of apology. "And really, I amthrowed into that state of amaze by finding you brought acquaintedwith Phoebe, that I--that I think I will, if you'll excuse me, takeanother rounder." Which he did, seeming to be greatly restored byit.

They were now both standing by the side of her couch, and she wasworking at her lace-pillow. "Your daughter tells me," said BarboxBrothers, still in a half-reluctant shamefaced way, "that she neversits up."

"No, sir, nor never has done. You see, her mother (who died whenshe was a year and two months old) was subject to very bad fits, andas she had never mentioned to me that she WAS subject to fits, theycouldn't be guarded against. Consequently, she dropped the babywhen took, and this happened."

"It was very wrong of her," said Barbox Brothers with a knittedbrow, "to marry you, making a secret of her infirmity.'

"Well, sir!" pleaded Lamps in behalf of the long-deceased. "Yousee, Phoebe and me, we have talked that over too. And Lord blessus! Such a number on us has our infirmities, what with fits, andwhat with misfits, of one sort and another, that if we confessed to'em all before we got married, most of us might never get married."

"Might not that be for the better?"

"Not in this case, sir," said Phoebe, giving her hand to her father.

"No, not in this case, sir," said her father, patting it between hisown.

"You correct me," returned Barbox Brothers with a blush; "and I mustlook so like a Brute, that at all events it would be superfluous inme to confess to THAT infirmity. I wish you would tell me a littlemore about yourselves. I hardly knew how to ask it of you, for I amconscious that I have a bad stiff manner, a dull discouraging waywith me, but I wish you would."

"With all our hearts, sir," returned Lamps gaily for both. "Andfirst of all, that you may know my name--"

"Stay!" interposed the visitor with a slight flush. "What signifiesyour name? Lamps is name enough for me. I like it. It is brightand expressive. What do I want more?"

"Why, to be sure, sir," returned Lamps. "I have in general no othername down at the Junction; but I thought, on account of your beinghere as a first-class single, in a private character, that youmight--"

The visitor waved the thought away with his hand, and Lampsacknowledged the mark of confidence by taking another rounder.

"You are hard-worked, I take for granted?" said Barbox Brothers,when the subject of the rounder came out of it much dirtier than bewent into it.

Lamps was beginning, "Not particular so"--when his daughter took himup.

"Oh yes, sir, he is very hard-worked. Fourteen, fifteen, eighteenhours a day. Sometimes twenty-four hours at a time."

"But my school is a pleasure to me," she interrupted, opening herbrown eyes wider, as if surprised to find him so obtuse. "I beganit when I was but a child, because it brought me and other childreninto company, don't you see? THAT was not work. I carry it onstill, because it keeps children about me. THAT is not work. I doit as love, not as work. Then my lace-pillow;" her busy hands hadstopped, as if her argument required all her cheerful earnestness,but now went on again at the name; "it goes with my thoughts when Ithink, and it goes with my tunes when I hum any, and THAT'S notwork. Why, you yourself thought it was music, you know, sir. Andso it is to me."

"No, I am not, sir, I assure you. No, I am not. If you could hearmy father sing, you would know I am not. But you never will hearhim sing, because he never sings to any one but me. However tiredhe is, he always sings to me when he comes home. When I lay herelong ago, quite a poor little broken doll, he used to sing to me.More than that, he used to make songs, bringing in whatever littlejokes we had between us. More than that, he often does so to thisday. Oh! I'll tell of you, father, as the gentleman has askedabout you. He is a poet, sir."

"I shouldn't wish the gentleman, my dear," observed Lamps, for themoment turning grave, "to carry away that opinion of your father,because it might look as if I was given to asking the stars in amolloncolly manner what they was up to. Which I wouldn't at oncewaste the time, and take the liberty, my dear."

"My father," resumed Phoebe, amending her text, "is always on thebright side, and the good side. You told me, just now, I had ahappy disposition. How can I help it?"

"Well; but, my dear," returned Lamps argumentatively, "how can Ihelp it? Put it to yourself sir. Look at her. Always as you seeher now. Always working--and after all, sir, for but a very fewshillings a week--always contented, always lively, always interestedin others, of all sorts. I said, this moment, she was always as yousee her now. So she is, with a difference that comes to much thesame. For, when it is my Sunday off and the morning bells have doneringing, I hear the prayers and thanks read in the touchingest way,and I have the hymns sung to me--so soft, sir, that you couldn'thear 'em out of this room--in notes that seem to me, I am sure, tocome from Heaven and go back to it."

It might have been merely through the association of these wordswith their sacredly quiet time, or it might have been through thelarger association of the words with the Redeemer's presence besidethe bedridden; but here her dexterous fingers came to a stop on thelace-pillow, and clasped themselves around his neck as he bent down.There was great natural sensibility in both father and daughter, thevisitor could easily see; but each made it, for the other's sake,retiring, not demonstrative; and perfect cheerfulness, intuitive oracquired, was either the first or second nature of both. In a veryfew moments Lamps was taking another rounder with his comicalfeatures beaming, while Phoebe's laughing eyes (just a glisteningspeck or so upon their lashes) were again directed by turns to him,and to her work, and to Barbox Brothers.

"When my father, sir," she said brightly, "tells you about my beinginterested in other people, even though they know nothing about me--which, by the bye, I told you myself--you ought to know how thatcomes about. That's my father's doing."

"No, it isn't!" he protested.

"Don't you believe him, sir; yes, it is. He tells me of everythinghe sees down at his work. You would be surprised what a quantity hegets together for me every day. He looks into the carriages, andtells me how the ladies are dressed--so that I know all thefashions! He looks into the carriages, and tells me what pairs oflovers he sees, and what new-married couples on their wedding trip--so that I know all about that! He collects chance newspapers andbooks--so that I have plenty to read! He tells me about the sickpeople who are travelling to try to get better--so that I know allabout them! In short, as I began by saying, he tells me everythinghe sees and makes out down at his work, and you can't think what aquantity he does see and make out."

"As to collecting newspapers and books, my dear," said Lamps, "it'sclear I can have no merit in that, because they're not myperquisites. You see, sir, it's this way: A Guard, he'll say tome, 'Hallo, here you are, Lamps. I've saved this paper for yourdaughter. How is she a-going on?' A Head-Porter, he'll say to me,'Here! Catch hold, Lamps. Here's a couple of wollumes for yourdaughter. Is she pretty much where she were?' And that's whatmakes it double welcome, you see. If she had a thousand pound in abox, they wouldn't trouble themselves about her; but being what sheis--that is, you understand," Lamps added, somewhat hurriedly, "nothaving a thousand pound in a box--they take thought for her. And asconcerning the young pairs, married and unmarried, it's only naturalI should bring home what little I can about THEM, seeing thatthere's not a Couple of either sort in the neighbourhood that don'tcome of their own accord to confide in Phoebe."

She raised her eyes triumphantly to Barbox Brothers as she said:

"Indeed, sir, that is true. If I could have got up and gone tochurch, I don't know how often I should have been a bridesmaid.But, if I could have done that, some girls in love might have beenjealous of me, and, as it is, no girl is jealous of me. And mypillow would not have been half as ready to put the piece of cakeunder, as I always find it," she added, turning her face on it witha light sigh, and a smile at her father.

The arrival of a little girl, the biggest of the scholars, now ledto an understanding on the part of Barbox Brothers, that she was thedomestic of the cottage, and had come to take active measures in it,attended by a pail that might have extinguished her, and a broomthree times her height. He therefore rose to take his leave, andtook it; saying that, if Phoebe had no objection, he would comeagain.

He had muttered that he would come "in the course of his walks."The course of his walks must have been highly favourable to hisreturn, for he returned after an interval of a single day.

"You thought you would never see me any more, I suppose?" he said toPhoebe as he touched her hand, and sat down by her couch.

"Why should I think so?" was her surprised rejoinder.

"I took it for granted you would mistrust me."

"For granted, sir? Have you been so much mistrusted?"

"I think I am justified in answering yes. But I may havemistrusted, too, on my part. No matter just now. We were speakingof the Junction last time. I have passed hours there since the daybefore yesterday."

"Are you now the gentleman for Somewhere?" she asked with a smile.

"Certainly for Somewhere; but I don't yet know Where. You wouldnever guess what I am travelling from. Shall I tell you? I amtravelling from my birthday."

Her hands stopped in her work, and she looked at him withincredulous astonishment.

"Yes," said Barbox Brothers, not quite easy in his chair, "from mybirthday. I am, to myself, an unintelligible book with the earlierchapters all torn out, and thrown away. My childhood had no graceof childhood, my youth had no charm of youth, and what can beexpected from such a lost beginning?" His eyes meeting hers as theywere addressed intently to him, something seemed to stir within hisbreast, whispering: "Was this bed a place for the graces ofchildhood and the charms of youth to take to kindly? Oh, shame,shame!"

"It is a disease with me," said Barbox Brothers, checking himself,and making as though he had a difficulty in swallowing something,"to go wrong about that. I don't know how I came to speak of that.I hope it is because of an old misplaced confidence in one of yoursex involving an old bitter treachery. I don't know. I am allwrong together."

Her hands quietly and slowly resumed their work. Glancing at her,he saw that her eyes were thoughtfully following them.

"I am travelling from my birthday," he resumed, "because it hasalways been a dreary day to me. My first free birthday coming roundsome five or six weeks hence, I am travelling to put itspredecessors far behind me, and to try to crush the day--or, at allevents, put it out of my sight--by heaping new objects on it."

As he paused, she looked at him; but only shook her head as beingquite at a loss.

"This is unintelligible to your happy disposition," he pursued,abiding by his former phrase as if there were some lingering virtueof self-defence in it. "I knew it would be, and am glad it is.However, on this travel of mine (in which I mean to pass the rest ofmy days, having abandoned all thought of a fixed home), I stopped,as you have heard from your father, at the Junction here. Theextent of its ramifications quite confused me as to whither I shouldgo, FROM here. I have not yet settled, being still perplexed amongso many roads. What do you think I mean to do? How many of thebranching roads can you see from your window?"

Looking out, full of interest, she answered, "Seven."

"Seven," said Barbox Brothers, watching her with a grave smile."Well! I propose to myself at once to reduce the gross number tothose very seven, and gradually to fine them down to one--the mostpromising for me--and to take that."

"But how will you know, sir, which IS the most promising?" sheasked, with her brightened eyes roving over the view.

"Ah!" said Barbox Brothers with another grave smile, andconsiderably improving in his ease of speech. "To be sure. In thisway. Where your father can pick up so much every day for a goodpurpose, I may once and again pick up a little for an indifferentpurpose. The gentleman for Nowhere must become still better knownat the Junction. He shall continue to explore it, until he attachessomething that he has seen, heard, or found out, at the head of eachof the seven roads, to the road itself. And so his choice of a roadshall be determined by his choice among his discoveries."

Her hands still busy, she again glanced at the prospect, as if itcomprehended something that had not been in it before, and laughedas if it yielded her new pleasure.

"But I must not forget," said Barbox Brothers, "(having got so far)to ask a favour. I want your help in this expedient of mine. Iwant to bring you what I pick up at the heads of the seven roadsthat you lie here looking out at, and to compare notes with youabout it. May I? They say two heads are better than one. I shouldsay myself that probably depends upon the heads concerned. But I amquite sure, though we are so newly acquainted, that your head andyour father's have found out better things, Phoebe, than ever mineof itself discovered."

She gave him her sympathetic right hand, in perfect rapture with hisproposal, and eagerly and gratefully thanked him.

"That's well!" said Barbox Brothers. "Again I must not forget(having got so far) to ask a favour. Will you shut your eyes?"

Laughing playfully at the strange nature of the request, she did so.

"Keep them shut," said Barbox Brothers, going softly to the door,and coming back. "You are on your honour, mind, not to open youeyes until I tell you that you may?"

"Yes! On my honour."

"Good. May I take your lace-pillow from you for a minute?"

Still laughing and wondering, she removed her hands from it, and heput it aside.

"Tell me. Did you see the puffs of smoke and steam made by themorning fast-train yesterday on road number seven from here?"

"Behind the elm-trees and the spire?"

"That's the road," said Barbox Brothers, directing his eyes towardsit.

"Yes. I watched them melt away."

"Anything unusual in what they expressed?"

"No!" she answered merrily.

"Not complimentary to me, for I was in that train. I went--don'topen your eyes--to fetch you this, from the great ingenious town.It is not half so large as your lace-pillow, and lies easily andlightly in its place. These little keys are like the keys of aminiature piano, and you supply the air required with your lefthand. May you pick out delightful music from it, my dear! For thepresent--you can open your eyes now--good-bye!"

In his embarrassed way, he closed the door upon himself, and onlysaw, in doing so, that she ecstatically took the present to herbosom and caressed it. The glimpse gladdened his heart, and yetsaddened it; for so might she, if her youth had flourished in itsnatural course, having taken to her breast that day the slumberingmusic of her own child's voice.

CHAPTER II--BARBOX BROTHERS AND CO.

With good-will and earnest purpose, the gentleman for Nowhere began,on the very next day, his researches at the heads of the sevenroads. The results of his researches, as he and Phoebe afterwardsset them down in fair writing, hold their due places in thisveracious chronicle. But they occupied a much longer time in thegetting together than they ever will in the perusal. And this isprobably the case with most reading matter, except when it is ofthat highly beneficial kind (for Posterity) which is "thrown off ina few moments of leisure" by the superior poetic geniuses who scornto take prose pains.

It must be admitted, however, that Barbox by no means hurriedhimself. His heart being in his work of good-nature, he revelled init. There was the joy, too (it was a true joy to him), of sometimessitting by, listening to Phoebe as she picked out more and morediscourse from her musical instrument, and as her natural taste andear refined daily upon her first discoveries. Besides being apleasure, this was an occupation, and in the course of weeks itconsumed hours. It resulted that his dreaded birthday was closeupon him before he had troubled himself any more about it.

The matter was made more pressing by the unforeseen circumstancethat the councils held (at which Mr. Lamps, beaming mostbrilliantly, on a few rare occasions assisted) respecting the roadto be selected were, after all, in nowise assisted by hisinvestigations. For, he had connected this interest with this road,or that interest with the other, but could deduce no reason from itfor giving any road the preference. Consequently, when the lastcouncil was holden, that part of the business stood, in the end,exactly where it had stood in the beginning.

"I should like you to take it," returned Phoebe with a persuasivesmile, "for the love of that little present which must ever be sodear to me. I should like you to take it, because that road cannever be again like any other road to me. I should like you to takeit, in remembrance of your having done me so much good: of yourhaving made me so much happier! If you leave me by the road youtravelled when you went to do me this great kindness," sounding afaint chord as she spoke, "I shall feel, lying here watching at mywindow, as if it must conduct you to a prosperous end, and bring youback some day."

"It shall be done, my dear; it shall be done."

So at last the gentleman for Nowhere took a ticket for Somewhere,and his destination was the great ingenious town.

He had loitered so long about the Junction that it was theeighteenth of December when he left it. "High time," he reflected,as he seated himself in the train, "that I started in earnest! Onlyone clear day remains between me and the day I am running away from.I'll push onward for the hill-country to-morrow. I'll go to Wales."

It was with some pains that he placed before himself the undeniableadvantages to be gained in the way of novel occupation for hissenses from misty mountains, swollen streams, rain, cold, a wildseashore, and rugged roads. And yet he scarcely made them out asdistinctly as he could have wished. Whether the poor girl, in spiteof her new resource, her music, would have any feeling of lonelinessupon her now--just at first--that she had not had before; whethershe saw those very puffs of steam and smoke that he saw, as he satin the train thinking of her; whether her face would have anypensive shadow on it as they died out of the distant view from herwindow; whether, in telling him he had done her so much good, shehad not unconsciously corrected his old moody bemoaning of hisstation in life, by setting him thinking that a man might be a greathealer, if he would, and yet not be a great doctor; these and othersimilar meditations got between him and his Welsh picture. Therewas within him, too, that dull sense of vacuity which followsseparation from an object of interest, and cessation of a pleasantpursuit; and this sense, being quite new to him, made him restless.Further, in losing Mugby Junction, he had found himself again; andhe was not the more enamoured of himself for having lately passedhis time in better company.

But surely here, not far ahead, must be the great ingenious town.This crashing and clashing that the train was undergoing, and thiscoupling on to it of a multitude of new echoes, could mean nothingless than approach to the great station. It did mean nothing less.After some stormy flashes of town lightning, in the way of swiftrevelations of red brick blocks of houses, high red brick chimney-shafts, vistas of red brick railway arches, tongues of fire, blocksof smoke, valleys of canal, and hills if coal, there came thethundering in at the journey's end.

Having seen his portmanteaus safely housed in the hotel he chose,and having appointed his dinner hour, Barbox Brothers went out for awalk in the busy streets. And now it began to be suspected by himthat Mugby Junction was a Junction of many branches, invisible aswell as visible, and had joined him to an endless number of by-ways.For, whereas he would, but a little while ago, have walked thesestreets blindly brooding, he now had eyes and thoughts for a newexternal world. How the many toiling people lived, and loved, anddied; how wonderful it was to consider the various trainings of eyeand hand, the nice distinctions of sight and touch, that separatedthem into classes of workers, and even into classes of workers atsubdivisions of one complete whole which combined their manyintelligences and forces, though of itself but some cheap object ofuse or ornament in common life; how good it was to know that suchassembling in a multitude on their part, and such contribution oftheir several dexterities towards a civilising end, did notdeteriorate them as it was the fashion of the supercilious Mayfliesof humanity to pretend, but engendered among them a self-respect,and yet a modest desire to be much wiser than they were (the firstevinced in their well-balanced bearing and manner of speech when hestopped to ask a question; the second, in the announcements of theirpopular studies and amusements on the public walls); theseconsiderations, and a host of such, made his walk a memorable one."I too am but a little part of a great whole," he began to think;"and to be serviceable to myself and others, or to be happy, I mustcast my interest into, and draw it out of, the common stock."

Although he had arrived at his journey's end for the day by noon, hehad since insensibly walked about the town so far and so long thatthe lamp-lighters were now at their work in the streets, and theshops were sparkling up brilliantly. Thus reminded to turn towardshis quarters, he was in the act of doing so, when a very little handcrept into his, and a very little voice said:

"Oh! if you please, I am lost!"

He looked down, and saw a very little fair-haired girl.

"Yes," she said, confirming her words with a serious nod. "I amindeed. I am lost!"

Greatly perplexed, he stopped, looked about him for help, descriednone, and said, bending low.

"Where do you live, my child?"

"I don't know where I live," she returned. "I am lost."

"What is your name?"

"Polly."

"What is your other name?"

The reply was prompt, but unintelligible.

Imitating the sound as he caught it, he hazarded the guess,"Trivits."

"Oh no!" said the child, shaking her head. "Nothing like that."

"Say it again, little one."

An unpromising business. For this time it had quite a differentsound.

He made the venture, " Paddens?"

"Oh no!" said the child. "Nothing like that."

"Once more. Let us try it again, dear."

A most hopeless business. This time it swelled into four syllables."It can't be Tappitarver?" said Barbox Brothers, rubbing his headwith his hat in discomfiture.

"No! It ain't," the child quietly assented.

On her trying this unfortunate name once more, with extraordinaryefforts at distinctness, it swelled into eight syllables at least.

"Ah! I think," said Barbox Brothers with a desperate air ofresignation, "that we had better give it up."

"But I am lost," said the child, nestling her little hand moreclosely in his, "and you'll take care of me, won't you?"

If ever a man were disconcerted by division between compassion onthe one hand, and the very imbecility of irresolution on the other,here the man was. "Lost!" he repeated, looking down at the child."I am sure I am. What is to be done?"

"Where do you live?" asked the child, looking up at him wistfully.

"Over there," he answered, pointing vaguely in the direction of hishotel.

"Hadn't we better go there?" said the child.

"Really," he replied, "I don't know but what we had."

So they set off, hand-in-hand. He, through comparison of himselfagainst his little companion, with a clumsy feeling on him as if hehad just developed into a foolish giant. She, clearly elevated inher own tiny opinion by having got him so neatly out of hisembarrassment.

"We are going to have dinner when we get there, I suppose?" saidPolly.

"Well," he rejoined, "I--Yes, I suppose we are."

"Do you like your dinner?" asked the child.

"Why, on the whole," said Barbox Brothers, "yes, I think I do."

"I do mine," said Polly. "Have you any brothers and sisters?"

"No. Have you?"

"Mine are dead."

"Oh!" said Barbox Brothers. With that absurd sense of unwieldinessof mind and body weighing him down, he would have not known how topursue the conversation beyond this curt rejoinder, but that thechild was always ready for him.

"What," she asked, turning her soft hand coaxingly in his, "are yougoing to do to amuse me after dinner?"

"Upon my soul, Polly," exclaimed Barbox Brothers, very much at aloss, "I have not the slightest idea!"

"Then I tell you what," said Polly. "Have you got any cards at yourhouse?"

"Plenty," said Barbox Brothers in a boastful vein.

"Very well. Then I'll build houses, and you shall look at me. Youmustn't blow, you know."

He flattered himself that he had said this pretty well for anidiotic monster; but the child, instantly perceiving the awkwardnessof his attempt to adapt himself to her level, utterly destroyed hishopeful opinion of himself by saying compassionately: "What a funnyman you are!"

Feeling, after this melancholy failure, as if he every minute grewbigger and heavier in person, and weaker in mind, Barbox gavehimself up for a bad job. No giant ever submitted more meekly to beled in triumph by all-conquering Jack than he to be bound in slaveryto Polly.

"Do you know any stories?" she asked him.

He was reduced to the humiliating confession: "No."

"What a dunce you must be, mustn't you?" said Polly.

He was reduced to the humiliating confession: "Yes."

"Would you like me to teach you a story? But you must remember it,you know, and be able to tell it right to somebody else afterwards."

He professed that it would afford him the highest mentalgratification to be taught a story, and that he would humblyendeavour to retain it in his mind. Whereupon Polly, giving herhand a new little turn in his, expressive of settling down forenjoyment, commenced a long romance, of which every relishing clausebegan with the words: "So this," or, "And so this." As, "So thisboy;" or, "So this fairy;" or, "And so this pie was four yardsround, and two yards and a quarter deep." The interest of theromance was derived from the intervention of this fairy to punishthis boy for having a greedy appetite. To achieve which purpose,this fairy made this pie, and this boy ate and ate and ate, and hischeeks swelled and swelled and swelled. There were many tributarycircumstances, but the forcible interest culminated in the totalconsumption of this pie, and the bursting of this boy. Truly he wasa fine sight, Barbox Brothers, with serious attentive face, and earbent down, much jostled on the pavements of the busy town, butafraid of losing a single incident of the epic, lest he should beexamined in it by-and-by, and found deficient.

Thus they arrived at the hotel. And there he had to say at the bar,and said awkwardly enough; "I have found a little girl!"

The whole establishment turned out to look at the little girl.Nobody knew her; nobody could make out her name, as she set itforth--except one chamber-maid, who said it was Constantinople--which it wasn't.

"I will dine with my young friend in a private room," said BarboxBrothers to the hotel authorities, "and perhaps you will be so goodas to let the police know that the pretty baby is here. I supposeshe is sure to be inquired for soon, if she has not been already.Come along, Polly."

Perfectly at ease and peace, Polly came along, but, finding thestairs rather stiff work, was carried up by Barbox Brothers. Thedinner was a most transcendant success, and the Barbox sheepishness,under Polly's directions how to mince her meat for her, and how todiffuse gravy over the plate with a liberal and equal hand, wasanother fine sight.

"And now," said Polly, "while we are at dinner, you be good, andtell me that story I taught you."

With the tremors of a Civil Service examination upon him, and veryuncertain indeed, not only as to the epoch at which the pie appearedin history, but also as to the measurements of that indispensablefact, Barbox Brothers made a shaky beginning, but underencouragement did very fairly. There was a want of breadthobservable in his rendering of the cheeks, as well as the appetite,of the boy; and there was a certain tameness in his fairy, referableto an under-current of desire to account for her. Still, as thefirst lumbering performance of a good-humoured monster, it passedmuster.

"I told you to be good," said Polly, "and you are good, ain't you?"

"I hope so," replied Barbox Brothers.

Such was his deference that Polly, elevated on a platform of sofacushions in a chair at his right hand, encouraged him with a pat ortwo on the face from the greasy bowl of her spoon, and even with agracious kiss. In getting on her feet upon her chair, however, togive him this last reward, she toppled forward among the dishes, andcaused him to exclaim, as he effected her rescue: "Gracious Angels!Whew! I thought we were in the fire, Polly!"

Indeed, he could descry no security from the pitfalls that wereyawning for Polly, but in proposing to her, after dinner, to situpon a low stool. "I will, if you will," said Polly. So, as peaceof mind should go before all, he begged the waiter to wheel asidethe table, bring a pack of cards, a couple of footstools, and ascreen, and close in Polly and himself before the fire, as it werein a snug room within the room. Then, finest sight of all, wasBarbox Brothers on his footstool, with a pint decanter on the rug,contemplating Polly as she built successfully, and growing blue inthe face with holding his breath, lest he should blow the housedown.

"How you stare, don't you?" said Polly in a houseless pause.

Detected in the ignoble fact, he felt obliged to admit,apologetically:

"You must be a simpleton to do things and not know why, mustn'tyou?" said Polly.

In spite of which reproof, he looked at the child again intently, asshe bent her head over her card structure, her rich curls shadingher face. "It is impossible," he thought, "that I can ever haveseen this pretty baby before. Can I have dreamed of her? In somesorrowful dream?"

He could make nothing of it. So he went into the building trade asa journeyman under Polly, and they built three stories high, fourstories high; even five.

"I say! Who do you think is coming?" asked Polly, rubbing her eyesafter tea.

He guessed: "The waiter?"

"No," said Polly, "the dustman. I am getting sleepy."

A new embarrassment for Barbox Brothers!

"I don't think I am going to be fetched to-night," said Polly."What do you think?"

He thought not, either. After another quarter of an hour, thedustman not merely impending, but actually arriving, recourse washad to the Constantinopolitan chamber-maid: who cheerily undertookthat the child should sleep in a comfortable and wholesome room,which she herself would share.

"And I know you will be careful, won't you," said Barbox Brothers,as a new fear dawned upon him, "that she don't fall out of bed?"

Polly found this so highly entertaining that she was under thenecessity of clutching him round the neck with both arms as he saton his footstool picking up the cards, and rocking him to and fro,with her dimpled chin on his shoulder.

"Oh, what a coward you are, ain't you?" said Polly. "Do you fallout of bed?"

"N--not generally, Polly."

"No more do I."

With that, Polly gave him a reassuring hug or two to keep him going,and then giving that confiding mite of a hand of hers to beswallowed up in the hand of the Constantinopolitan chamber-maid,trotted off, chattering, without a vestige of anxiety.

He looked after her, had the screen removed and the table and chairsreplaced, and still looked after her. He paced the room for half anhour. "A most engaging little creature, but it's not that. A mostwinning little voice, but it's not that. That has much to do withit, but there is something more. How can it be that I seem to knowthis child? What was it she imperfectly recalled to me when I felther touch in the street, and, looking down at her, saw her lookingup at me?"

"Mr. Jackson!"

With a start he turned towards the sound of the subdued voice, andsaw his answer standing at the door.

"Oh, Mr. Jackson, do not be severe with me! Speak a word ofencouragement to me, I beseech you."

"You are Polly's mother."

"Yes."

Yes. Polly herself might come to this, one day. As you see whatthe rose was in its faded leaves; as you see what the summer growthof the woods was in their wintry branches; so Polly might be traced,one day, in a careworn woman like this, with her hair turned grey.Before him were the ashes of a dead fire that had once burnedbright. This was the woman he had loved. This was the woman he hadlost. Such had been the constancy of his imagination to her, so hadTime spared her under its withholding, that now, seeing how roughlythe inexorable hand had struck her, his soul was filled with pityand amazement.

He led her to a chair, and stood leaning on a corner of the chimney-piece, with his head resting on his hand, and his face half averted.

"Did you see me in the street, and show me to your child?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Is the little creature, then, a party to deceit?"

"I hope there is no deceit. I said to her, 'We have lost our way,and I must try to find mine by myself. Go to that gentleman, andtell him you are lost. You shall be fetched by-and-by.' Perhapsyou have not thought how very young she is?"

He suddenly turned about, and walked to the opposite end of theroom. He came back again with a slower step, and resumed his formerattitude, saying:

"I thought you had emigrated to America?"

"We did. But life went ill with us there, and we came back."

"Do you live in this town?"

"Yes. I am a daily teacher of music here. My husband is a book-keeper."

"Are you--forgive my asking--poor?"

"We earn enough for our wants. That is not our distress. Myhusband is very, very ill of a lingering disorder. He will neverrecover--"

"You check yourself. If it is for want of the encouraging word youspoke of, take it from me. I cannot forget the old time, Beatrice."

"God bless you!" she replied with a burst of tears, and gave him hertrembling hand.

"Compose yourself. I cannot be composed if you are not, for to seeyou weep distresses me beyond expression. Speak freely to me.Trust me."

She shaded her face with her veil, and after a little while spokecalmly. Her voice had the ring of Polly's.

"It is not that my husband's mind is at all impaired by his bodilysuffering, for I assure you that is not the case. But in hisweakness, and in his knowledge that he is incurably ill, he cannotovercome the ascendancy of one idea. It preys upon him, embittersevery moment of his painful life, and will shorten it."

She stopping, he said again: "Speak freely to me. Trust me."

"We have had five children before this darling, and they all lie intheir little graves. He believes that they have withered away undera curse, and that it will blight this child like the rest."

"Under what curse?"

"Both I and he have it on our conscience that we tried you veryheavily, and I do not know but that, if I were as ill as he, I mightsuffer in my mind as he does. This is the constant burden:- 'Ibelieve, Beatrice, I was the only friend that Mr. Jackson ever caredto make, though I was so much his junior. The more influence heacquired in the business, the higher he advanced me, and I was alonein his private confidence. I came between him and you, and I tookyou from him. We were both secret, and the blow fell when he waswholly unprepared. The anguish it caused a man so compressed musthave been terrible; the wrath it awakened inappeasable. So, a cursecame to be invoked on our poor, pretty little flowers, and theyfall.'"

"And you, Beatrice," he asked, when she had ceased to speak, andthere had been a silence afterwards, "how say you?"

"Until within these few weeks I was afraid of you, and I believedthat you would never, never forgive."

"Until within these few weeks," he repeated. "Have you changed youropinion of me within these few weeks?"

"Yes."

"For what reason?"

"I was getting some pieces of music in a shop in this town, when, tomy terror, you came in. As I veiled my face and stood in the darkend of the shop, I heard you explain that you wanted a musicalinstrument for a bedridden girl. Your voice and manner were sosoftened, you showed such interest in its selection, you took itaway yourself with so much tenderness of care and pleasure, that Iknew you were a man with a most gentle heart. Oh, Mr. Jackson, Mr.Jackson, if you could have felt the refreshing rain of tears thatfollowed for me!"

Was Phoebe playing at that moment on her distant couch? He seemedto hear her.

"I inquired in the shop where you lived, but could get noinformation. As I had heard you say that you were going back by thenext train (but you did not say where), I resolved to visit thestation at about that time of day, as often as I could, between mylessons, on the chance of seeing you again. I have been there veryoften, but saw you no more until to-day. You were meditating as youwalked the street, but the calm expression of your face emboldenedme to send my child to you. And when I saw you bend your head tospeak tenderly to her, I prayed to GOD to forgive me for having everbrought a sorrow on it. I now pray to you to forgive me, and toforgive my husband. I was very young, he was young too, and, in theignorant hardihood of such a time of life, we don't know what we doto those who have undergone more discipline. You generous man! Yougood man! So to raise me up and make nothing of my crime againstyou!"--for he would not see her on her knees, and soothed her as akind father might have soothed an erring daughter--"thank you, blessyou, thank you!"

When he next spoke, it was after having drawn aside the windowcurtain and looked out awhile. Then he only said:

"Is Polly asleep?"

"Yes. As I came in, I met her going away upstairs, and put her tobed myself."

"Leave her with me for to-morrow, Beatrice, and write me youraddress on this leaf of my pocket-book. In the evening I will bringher home to you--and to her father."

* * *

"Hallo!" cried Polly, putting her saucy sunny face in at the doornext morning when breakfast was ready: "I thought I was fetchedlast night?"

"So you were, Polly, but I asked leave to keep you here for the day,and to take you home in the evening."

"Upon my word!" said Polly. "You are very cool, ain't you?"

However, Polly seemed to think it a good idea, and added: "Isuppose I must give you a kiss, though you ARE cool."

The kiss given and taken, they sat down to breakfast in a highlyconversational tone.

"Of course, you are going to amuse me?" said Polly.

"Oh, of course!" said Barbox Brothers.

In the pleasurable height of her anticipations, Polly found itindispensable to put down her piece of toast, cross one of herlittle fat knees over the other, and bring her little fat right handdown into her left hand with a business-like slap. After thisgathering of herself together, Polly, by that time a mere heap ofdimples, asked in a wheedling manner:

"What are we going to do, you dear old thing?"

"Why, I was thinking," said Barbox Brothers, "--but are you fond ofhorses, Polly?"

"Ponies, I am," said Polly, "especially when their tails are long.But horses--n-no--too big, you know."

"Well," pursued Barbox Brothers, in a spirit of grave mysteriousconfidence adapted to the importance of the consultation, "I did seeyesterday, Polly, on the walls, pictures of two long-tailed ponies,speckled all over--"

"That means amuse us. That is exactly what it means. There aremany other wonders besides the ponies, and we shall see them all.Ladies and gentlemen in spangled dresses, and elephants and lionsand tigers."

Polly became observant of the teapot, with a curled-up noseindicating some uneasiness of mind.

"Full-dressed. Together with a house, and all things necessary forhousekeeping--"

Polly gave a little scream, and seemed in danger of falling into aswoon of bliss.

"What a darling you are!" she languidly exclaimed, leaning back inher chair. "Come and be hugged, or I must come and hug you."

This resplendent programme was carried into execution with theutmost rigour of the law. It being essential to make the purchaseof the doll its first feature--or that lady would have lost theponies--the toy-shop expedition took precedence. Polly in the magicwarehouse, with a doll as large as herself under each arm, and aneat assortment of some twenty more on view upon the counter, didindeed present a spectacle of indecision not quite compatible withunalloyed happiness, but the light cloud passed. The lovelyspecimen oftenest chosen, oftenest rejected, and finally abided by,was of Circassian descent, possessing as much boldness of beauty aswas reconcilable with extreme feebleness of mouth, and combining asky-blue silk pelisse with rose-coloured satin trousers, and a blackvelvet hat: which this fair stranger to our northern shores wouldseem to have founded on the portraits of the late Duchess of Kent.The name this distinguished foreigner brought with her from beneaththe glowing skies of a sunny clime was (on Polly's authority) MissMelluka, and the costly nature of her outfit as a housekeeper, fromthe Barbox coffers, may be inferred from the two facts that hersilver tea-spoons were as large as her kitchen poker, and that theproportions of her watch exceeded those of her frying-pan. MissMelluka was graciously pleased to express her entire approbation ofthe Circus, and so was Polly; for the ponies were speckled, andbrought down nobody when they fired, and the savagery of the wildbeasts appeared to be mere smoke--which article, in fact, they didproduce in large quantities from their insides. The Barboxabsorption in the general subject throughout the realisation ofthese delights was again a sight to see, nor was it less worthy tobehold at dinner, when he drank to Miss Melluka, tied stiff in achair opposite to Polly (the fair Circassian possessing anunbendable spine), and even induced the waiter to assist in carryingout with due decorum the prevailing glorious idea. To wind up,there came the agreeable fever of getting Miss Melluka and all herwardrobe and rich possessions into a fly with Polly, to be takenhome. But, by that time, Polly had become unable to look upon suchaccumulated joys with waking eyes, and had withdrawn herconsciousness into the wonderful Paradise of a child's sleep."Sleep, Polly, sleep," said Barbox Brothers, as her head dropped onhis shoulder; "you shall not fall out of this bed easily, at anyrate!"

What rustling piece of paper he took from his pocket, and carefullyfolded into the bosom of Polly's frock, shall not be mentioned. Hesaid nothing about it, and nothing shall be said about it. Theydrove to a modest suburb of the great ingenious town, and stopped atthe fore-court of a small house. "Do not wake the child," saidBarbox Brothers softly to the driver; "I will carry her in as sheis."

Greeting the light at the opened door which was held by Polly'smother, Polly's bearer passed on with mother and child in to aground-floor room. There, stretched on a sofa, lay a sick man,sorely wasted, who covered his eyes with his emaciated hand.

The sick man reached forth his right hand, and bowed his head overthe hand into which it was taken, and kissed it. "Thank you, thankyou! I may say that I am well and happy."

"That's brave," said Barbox. "Tresham, I have a fancy--Can you makeroom for me beside you here?"

He sat down on the sofa as he said the words, cherishing the plumppeachey cheek that lay uppermost on his shoulder.

"I have a fancy, Tresham (I am getting quite an old fellow now, youknow, and old fellows may take fancies into their heads sometimes),to give up Polly, having found her, to no one but you. Will youtake her from me?"

As the father held out his arms for the child, each of the two menlooked steadily at the other.

"She is very dear to you, Tresham?"

"Unutterably dear."

"God bless her! It is not much, Polly," he continued, turning hiseyes upon her peaceful face as he apostrophized her, "it is notmuch, Polly, for a blind and sinful man to invoke a blessing onsomething so far better than himself as a little child is; but itwould be much--much upon his cruel head, and much upon his guiltysoul--if he could be so wicked as to invoke a curse. He had betterhave a millstone round his neck, and be cast into the deepest sea.Live and thrive, my pretty baby!" Here he kissed her. "Live andprosper, and become in time the mother of other little children,like the Angels who behold The Father's face!"

He kissed her again, gave her up gently to both her parents, andwent out.

But he went not to Wales. No, he never went to Wales. He wentstraightway for another stroll about the town, and he looked in uponthe people at their work, and at their play, here, there, every-there, and where not. For he was Barbox Brothers and Co. now, andhad taken thousands of partners into the solitary firm.

He had at length got back to his hotel room, and was standing beforehis fire refreshing himself with a glass of hot drink which he hadstood upon the chimney-piece, when he heard the town clocksstriking, and, referring to his watch, found the evening to have soslipped away, that they were striking twelve. As he put up hiswatch again, his eyes met those of his reflection in the chimney-glass.

"Why, it's your birthday already," he said, smiling. "You arelooking very well. I wish you many happy returns of the day."

He had never before bestowed that wish upon himself. "By Jupiter!"he discovered, "it alters the whole case of running away from one'sbirthday! It's a thing to explain to Phoebe. Besides, here isquite a long story to tell her, that has sprung out of the road withno story. I'll go back, instead of going on. I'll go back by myfriend Lamps's Up X presently."

He went back to Mugby Junction, and, in point of fact, heestablished himself at Mugby Junction. It was the convenient placeto live in, for brightening Phoebe's life. It was the convenientplace to live in, for having her taught music by Beatrice. It wasthe convenient place to live in, for occasionally borrowing Polly.It was the convenient place to live in, for being joined at will toall sorts of agreeable places and persons. So, he became settledthere, and, his house standing in an elevated situation, it isnoteworthy of him in conclusion, as Polly herself might (notirreverently) have put it:

"There was an Old Barbox who lived on a hill,And if he ain't gone, he lives there still."

Here follows the substance of what was seen, heard, or otherwisepicked up, by the gentleman for Nowhere, in his careful study of theJunction.

CHAPTER III--THE BOY AT MUGBY

I am the boy at Mugby. That's about what I am.

You don't know what I mean? What a pity! But I think you do. Ithink you must. Look here. I am the boy at what is called TheRefreshment Room at Mugby Junction, and what's proudest boast is,that it never yet refreshed a mortal being.

Up in a corner of the Down Refreshment Room at Mugby Junction, inthe height of twenty-seven cross draughts (I've often counted 'emwhile they brush the First-Class hair twenty-seven ways), behind thebottles, among the glasses, bounded on the nor'west by the beer,stood pretty far to the right of a metallic object that's at timesthe tea-urn and at times the soup-tureen, according to the nature ofthe last twang imparted to its contents which are the samegroundwork, fended off from the traveller by a barrier of stalesponge-cakes erected atop of the counter, and lastly exposedsideways to the glare of Our Missis's eye--you ask a Boy sositiwated, next time you stop in a hurry at Mugby, for anything todrink; you take particular notice that he'll try to seem not to hearyou, that he'll appear in a absent manner to survey the Line througha transparent medium composed of your head and body, and that hewon't serve you as long as you can possibly bear it. That's me.

What a lark it is! We are the Model Establishment, we are, atMugby. Other Refreshment Rooms send their imperfect young ladies upto be finished off by our Missis. For some of the young ladies,when they're new to the business, come into it mild! Ah! OurMissis, she soon takes that out of 'em. Why, I originally come intothe business meek myself. But Our Missis, she soon took that out ofME.

What a delightful lark it is! I look upon us Refreshmenters asockipying the only proudly independent footing on the Line. There'sPapers, for instance,--my honourable friend, if he will allow me tocall him so,--him as belongs to Smith's bookstall. Why, he no moredares to be up to our Refreshmenting games than he dares to jump atop of a locomotive with her steam at full pressure, and cut awayupon her alone, driving himself, at limited-mail speed. Papers,he'd get his head punched at every compartment, first, second, andthird, the whole length of a train, if he was to ventur to imitatemy demeanour. It's the same with the porters, the same with theguards, the same with the ticket clerks, the same the whole way upto the secretary, traffic-manager, or very chairman. There ain't aone among 'em on the nobly independent footing we are. Did you evercatch one of them, when you wanted anything of him, making a systemof surveying the Line through a transparent medium composed of yourhead and body? I should hope not.

You should see our Bandolining Room at Mugby Junction. It's led toby the door behind the counter, which you'll notice usually standsajar, and it's the room where Our Missis and our young ladiesBandolines their hair. You should see 'em at it, betwixt trains,Bandolining away, as if they was anointing themselves for thecombat. When you're telegraphed, you should see their noses all a-going up with scorn, as if it was a part of the working of the sameCooke and Wheatstone electrical machinery. You should hear OurMissis give the word, "Here comes the Beast to be Fed!" and then youshould see 'em indignantly skipping across the Line, from the Up tothe Down, or Wicer Warsaw, and begin to pitch the stale pastry intothe plates, and chuck the sawdust sangwiches under the glass covers,and get out the--ha, ha, ha!--the sherry,--O my eye, my eye!--foryour Refreshment.

It's only in the Isle of the Brave and Land of the Free (by which,of course, I mean to say Britannia) that Refreshmenting is soeffective, so 'olesome, so constitutional a check upon the public.There was a Foreigner, which having politely, with his hat off,beseeched our young ladies and Our Missis for "a leetel gloss hostprarndee," and having had the Line surveyed through him by all andno other acknowledgment, was a-proceeding at last to help himself,as seems to be the custom in his own country, when Our Missis, withher hair almost a-coming un-Bandolined with rage, and her eyesomitting sparks, flew at him, cotched the decanter out of his hand,and said, "Put it down! I won't allow that!" The foreigner turnedpale, stepped back with his arms stretched out in front of him, hishands clasped, and his shoulders riz, and exclaimed: "Ah! Is itpossible, this! That these disdaineous females and this ferociousold woman are placed here by the administration, not only toempoison the voyagers, but to affront them! Great Heaven! Howarrives it? The English people. Or is he then a slave? Or idiot?"Another time, a merry, wideawake American gent had tried the sawdustand spit it out, and had tried the Sherry and spit that out, and hadtried in vain to sustain exhausted natur upon Butter-Scotch, and hadbeen rather extra Bandolined and Line-surveyed through, when, as thebell was ringing and he paid Our Missis, he says, very loud andgood-tempered: "I tell Yew what 'tis, ma'arm. I la'af. Theer! Ila'af. I Dew. I oughter ha' seen most things, for I hail from theOnlimited side of the Atlantic Ocean, and I haive travelled rightslick over the Limited, head on through Jeerusalemm and the East,and likeways France and Italy, Europe Old World, and am now upon thetrack to the Chief Europian Village; but such an Institution as Yew,and Yewer young ladies, and Yewer fixin's solid and liquid, aforethe glorious Tarnal I never did see yet! And if I hain't found theeighth wonder of monarchical Creation, in finding Yew and Yeweryoung ladies, and Yewer fixin's solid and liquid, all as aforesaid,established in a country where the people air not absolute Loo-naticks, I am Extra Double Darned with a Nip and Frizzle to theinnermostest grit! Wheerfur--Theer!--I la'af! I Dew, ma'arm. Ila'af!" And so he went, stamping and shaking his sides, along theplatform all the way to his own compartment.

I think it was her standing up agin the Foreigner as giv' Our Missisthe idea of going over to France, and droring a comparison betwixtRefreshmenting as followed among the frog-eaters, and Refreshmentingas triumphant in the Isle of the Brave and Land of the Free (bywhich, of course, I mean to say agin, Britannia). Our young ladies,Miss Whiff, Miss Piff, and Mrs. Sniff, was unanimous opposed to hergoing; for, as they says to Our Missis one and all, it is wellbeknown to the hends of the herth as no other nation except Britainhas a idea of anythink, but above all of business. Why then shouldyou tire yourself to prove what is already proved? Our Missis,however (being a teazer at all pints) stood out grim obstinate, andgot a return pass by Southeastern Tidal, to go right through, ifsuch should be her dispositions, to Marseilles.

Sniff is husband to Mrs. Sniff, and is a regular insignificant cove.He looks arter the sawdust department in a back room, and issometimes, when we are very hard put to it, let behind the counterwith a corkscrew; but never when it can be helped, his demeanourtowards the public being disgusting servile. How Mrs. Sniff evercome so far to lower herself as to marry him, I don't know; but Isuppose he does, and I should think he wished he didn't, for heleads a awful life. Mrs. Sniff couldn't be much harder with him ifhe was public. Similarly, Miss Whiff and Miss Piff, taking the toneof Mrs. Sniff, they shoulder Sniff about when he IS let in with acorkscrew, and they whisk things out of his hands when in hisservility he is a-going to let the public have 'em, and they snaphim up when in the crawling baseness of his spirit he is a-going toanswer a public question, and they drore more tears into his eyesthan ever the mustard does which he all day long lays on to thesawdust. (But it ain't strong.) Once, when Sniff had therepulsiveness to reach across to get the milk-pot to hand over for ababy, I see Our Missis in her rage catch him by both his shoulders,and spin him out into the Bandolining Room.

But Mrs. Sniff,--how different! She's the one! She's the one asyou'll notice to be always looking another way from you, when youlook at her. She's the one with the small waist buckled in tight infront, and with the lace cuffs at her wrists, which she puts on theedge of the counter before her, and stands a smoothing while thepublic foams. This smoothing the cuffs and looking another waywhile the public foams is the last accomplishment taught to theyoung ladies as come to Mugby to be finished by Our Missis; and it'salways taught by Mrs. Sniff.

When Our Missis went away upon her journey, Mrs. Sniff was left incharge. She did hold the public in check most beautiful! In all mytime, I never see half so many cups of tea given without milk topeople as wanted it with, nor half so many cups of tea with milkgiven to people as wanted it without. When foaming ensued, Mrs.Sniff would say: "Then you'd better settle it among yourselves, andchange with one another." It was a most highly delicious lark. Ienjoyed the Refreshmenting business more than ever, and was so gladI had took to it when young.

Our Missis returned. It got circulated among the young ladies, andit as it might be penetrated to me through the crevices of theBandolining Room, that she had Orrors to reveal, if revelations socontemptible could be dignified with the name. Agitation becomeawakened. Excitement was up in the stirrups. Expectation stood a-tiptoe. At length it was put forth that on our slacked evening inthe week, and at our slackest time of that evening betwixt trains,Our Missis would give her views of foreign Refreshmenting, in theBandolining Room.

It was arranged tasteful for the purpose. The Bandolining table andglass was hid in a corner, a arm-chair was elevated on a packing-case for Our Missis's ockypation, a table and a tumbler of water (nosherry in it, thankee) was placed beside it. Two of the pupils, theseason being autumn, and hollyhocks and dahlias being in, ornamentedthe wall with three devices in those flowers. On one might be read,"MAY ALBION NEVER LEARN;" on another "KEEP THE PUBLIC DOWN;" onanother, "OUR REFRESHMENTING CHARTER." The whole had a beautifulappearance, with which the beauty of the sentiments corresponded.

On Our Missis's brow was wrote Severity, as she ascended the fatalplatform. (Not that that was anythink new.) Miss Whiff and MissPiff sat at her feet. Three chairs from the Waiting Room might havebeen perceived by a average eye, in front of her, on which thepupils was accommodated. Behind them a very close observer mighthave discerned a Boy. Myself.

"Where," said Our Missis, glancing gloomily around, "is Sniff?"

"I thought it better," answered Mrs. Sniff, "that he should not belet to come in. He is such an Ass."

"No doubt," assented Our Missis. "But for that reason is it notdesirable to improve his mind?"

"Oh, nothing will ever improve HIM," said Mrs. Sniff.

"However," pursued Our Missis, "call him in, Ezekiel."

I called him in. The appearance of the low-minded cove was hailedwith disapprobation from all sides, on account of his having broughthis corkscrew with him. He pleaded "the force of habit."

"The force!" said Mrs. Sniff. "Don't let us have you talking aboutforce, for Gracious' sake. There! Do stand still where you are,with your back against the wall."

He is a smiling piece of vacancy, and he smiled in the mean way inwhich he will even smile at the public if he gets a chance (languagecan say no meaner of him), and he stood upright near the door withthe back of his head agin the wall, as if he was a waiting forsomebody to come and measure his heighth for the Army.

"I should not enter, ladies," says Our Missis, "on the revoltingdisclosures I am about to make, if it was not in the hope that theywill cause you to be yet more implacable in the exercise of thepower you wield in a constitutional country, and yet more devoted tothe constitutional motto which I see before me,"--it was behind her,but the words sounded better so,--"'May Albion never learn!'"

Here the pupils as had made the motto admired it, and cried, "Hear!Hear! Hear!" Sniff, showing an inclination to join in chorus, gothimself frowned down by every brow.

"The baseness of the French," pursued Our Missis, "as displayed inthe fawning nature of their Refreshmenting, equals, if notsurpasses, anythink as was ever heard of the baseness of thecelebrated Bonaparte."

The cowering that come upon him when he was spurned by all eyes,added to his being beneath contempt, was sufficient punishment for acove so grovelling. In the midst of a silence rendered moreimpressive by the turned-up female noses with which it was pervaded,Our Missis went on:

"Shall I be believed when I tell you, that no sooner had I landed,"this word with a killing look at Sniff, "on that treacherous shore,than I was ushered into a Refreshment Room where there were--I donot exaggerate--actually eatable things to eat?"

A groan burst from the ladies. I not only did myself the honour ofjining, but also of lengthening it out.

A murmur, swelling almost into a scream, ariz. Miss Piff, tremblingwith indignation, called out, "Name?"

"I WILL name," said Our Missis. "There was roast fowls, hot andcold; there was smoking roast veal surrounded with browned potatoes;there was hot soup with (again I ask shall I be credited?) nothingbitter in it, and no flour to choke off the consumer; there was avariety of cold dishes set off with jelly; there was salad; therewas--mark me! FRESH pastry, and that of a light construction; therewas a luscious show of fruit; there was bottles and decanters ofsound small wine, of every size, and adapted to every pocket; thesame odious statement will apply to brandy; and these were set outupon the counter so that all could help themselves."

Our Missis's lips so quivered, that Mrs. Sniff, though scarcely lessconvulsed than she were, got up and held the tumbler to them.

"This," proceeds Our Missis, "was my first unconstitutionalexperience. Well would it have been if it had been my last andworst. But no. As I proceeded farther into that enslaved andignorant land, its aspect became more hideous. I need not explainto this assembly the ingredients and formation of the BritishRefreshment sangwich?"

Universal laughter,--except from Sniff, who, as sangwich-cutter,shook his head in a state of the utmost dejection as he stood withit agin the wall.

"Well!" said Our Missis, with dilated nostrils. "Take a fresh,crisp, long, crusty penny loaf made of the whitest and best flour.Cut it longwise through the middle. Insert a fair and nicelyfitting slice of ham. Tie a smart piece of ribbon round the middleof the whole to bind it together. Add at one end a neat wrapper ofclean white paper by which to hold it. And the universal FrenchRefreshment sangwich busts on your disgusted vision."

A cry of "Shame!" from all--except Sniff, which rubbed his stomachwith a soothing hand.

"I need not," said Our Missis, "explain to this assembly the usualformation and fitting of the British Refreshment Room?"

No, no, and laughter. Sniff agin shaking his head in low spiritsagin the wall.

"Well," said Our Missis, "what would you say to a general decorationof everythink, to hangings (sometimes elegant), to easy velvetfurniture, to abundance of little tables, to abundance of littleseats, to brisk bright waiters, to great convenience, to a pervadingcleanliness and tastefulness positively addressing the public, andmaking the Beast thinking itself worth the pains?"

Contemptuous fury on the part of all the ladies. Mrs. Sniff lookingas if she wanted somebody to hold her, and everbody else looking asif they'd rayther not.

"Three times," said Our Missis, working herself into a trulyterrimenjious state,--"three times did I see these shameful things,only between the coast and Paris, and not counting either: atHazebroucke, at Arras, at Amiens. But worse remains. Tell me, whatwould you call a person who should propose in England that thereshould be kept, say at our own model Mugby Junction, pretty baskets,each holding an assorted cold lunch and dessert for one, each at acertain fixed price, and each within a passenger's power to takeaway, to empty in the carriage at perfect leisure, and to return atanother station fifty or a hundred miles farther on?"

There was disagreement what such a person should be called. Whetherrevolutionise, atheist, Bright (I said him), or Un-English. MissPiff screeched her shrill opinion last, in the words: "A malignantmaniac!"

"I adopt," says Our Missis, "the brand set upon such a person by therighteous indignation of my friend Miss Piff. A malignant maniac.Know, then, that that malignant maniac has sprung from the congenialsoil of France, and that his malignant madness was in uncheckedaction on this same part of my journey."

I noticed that Sniff was a-rubbing his hands, and that Mrs. Sniffhad got her eye upon him. But I did not take more particularnotice, owing to the excited state in which the young ladies was,and to feeling myself called upon to keep it up with a howl.

"On my experience south of Paris," said Our Missis, in a deep tone,"I will not expatiate. Too loathsome were the task! But fancythis. Fancy a guard coming round, with the train at full speed, toinquire how many for dinner. Fancy his telegraphing forward thenumber of dinners. Fancy every one expected, and the tableelegantly laid for the complete party. Fancy a charming dinner, ina charming room, and the head-cook, concerned for the honour ofevery dish, superintending in his clean white jacket and cap. Fancythe Beast travelling six hundred miles on end, very fast, and withgreat punctuality, yet being taught to expect all this to be donefor it!"

A spirited chorus of "The Beast!"

I noticed that Sniff was agin a-rubbing his stomach with a soothinghand, and that he had drored up one leg. But agin I didn't takeparticular notice, looking on myself as called upon to stimulatepublic feeling. It being a lark besides.

"Putting everything together," said Our Missis, "FrenchRefreshmenting comes to this, and oh, it comes to a nice total!First: eatable things to eat, and drinkable things to drink."

"And I cannot in conclusion," says Our Missis, with her spitefullestsneer, "give you a completer pictur of that despicable nation (afterwhat I have related), than assuring you that they wouldn't bear ourconstitutional ways and noble independence at Mugby Junction, for asingle month, and that they would turn us to the right-about and putanother system in our places, as soon as look at us; perhaps sooner,for I do not believe they have the good taste to care to look at ustwice."

The swelling tumult was arrested in its rise. Sniff, bore away byhis servile disposition, had drored up his leg with a higher and ahigher relish, and was now discovered to be waving his corkscrewover his head. It was at this moment that Mrs. Sniff, who had kep'her eye upon him like the fabled obelisk, descended on her victim.Our Missis followed them both out, and cries was heard in thesawdust department.

You come into the Down Refreshment Room, at the Junction, makingbelieve you don't know me, and I'll pint you out with my right thumbover my shoulder which is Our Missis, and which is Miss Whiff, andwhich is Miss Piff, and which is Mrs. Sniff. But you won't get achance to see Sniff, because he disappeared that night. Whether heperished, tore to pieces, I cannot say; but his corkscrew aloneremains, to bear witness to the servility of his disposition.
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